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A CurtainUp Review
The Deep Throat Sex Scandals
By Elyse Sommer
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How far does a girl have to go to untangle her tingle? — much quoted tag line that sums up the dilemma of Deep Throat star Linda Lovelace— the graphic answer and solution to that dilemma drove what passes for the famous film's " plot." By the third closing {of Deep Throat at the World Theater north of Times Square}, Harry Reems was a household name. . . ‘Course, it was nothing compared to the spotlight shining on Nixon at the time. See, by then, he was up to his eyeballs in the Watergate mess, and that other Deep Throat was about to bring down his presidency. But not me —– I was on top of the world. —Harry Reems' the notorious film's as well as The Deep Throat Sex Scandal's star. It was the badge of the new freedom— filmmaker John Waters, one of the many celebrities commenting on Deep Throat's impact on society in the 2005 documentary Inside Deep Throat. |
Lori Gardner as Linda Lovelace and Malcolm Madera as Harry Reems
(Photo: Carol Rosegg) |
Actually, the actress leaving her seat in mock horror is likely to enhance the audience's anticipation rather than set off an audience exodus. There wasn't a single walkout the night I was there. The audience in attendance clearly did NOT skim read the title but got exactly what they came for: A funny if somewhat cartoonish romp through the making of a movie that represented a giant step towards mainstreaming language and sex scenes formerly seen only in seedy underground venues or, if in print, mailed in plain brown wrappers.
As directed by Jerry Douglas and performed by an energetic cast of eight, The Deep Throat Sex Scandals actually aims to go beyond titillating entertainment and elevate the controversial porno film to the status as a legendary door opener to freedom of expression in any art form. Not that you won't hear plenty of triple x-rated language and see actual reenactments of porno loops in the making. That includes the film's doctor (Malcolm Madera as Harry Reems) treating the patient (Linda Lovelace, chanelled by Lori Gardner) with an unusual type of sexual dysfunction. (Both Madera and Gardner look quite a bit like their role models). However, when it's time for a close-up of the curative treatment, it's not quite as graphic as the footage in the 2005 documentary, Inside Deep Throat. This is much more a case of XXX-rated tell, with the show element closer to a single X.
As Deep Throat became something more than a typical low budget porn flick (It cost about $25,000), this is not another documentary like Inside Deep Throat with lots of famous talking hats, but a somewhat fictionalized ride through the creation of the play as well as its aftermath. The laughs are pretty broad and the play is at its most interesting when it gets to the play's beccoming an inadvertent jumpstarter for a First Amendment rights battle that left its mark on what could or couldn't be seen in more traditional stage and movie theaters. The fact that the film inspired the code name for the Woodward and Bernstein's unnamed source allows the script to underscore the concurrent timeline between Richard Nixon's downfall and the rise to fame (or, if you will, infamy) of the Deep Throat director Gerard Damiano ((John-Charles Kelly) and his leads.
The more historic and more serious and painful aspects of The Deep Throat Sex Scandals announce themselves even as you take your seat at the Bleeker Street Theater. An oversized replica of the U.S.Constitution is projected on the back screen of the stage. But as the house lights fade a huge wooden gavel slashes through the document with a thundering crash, a disembodied voice declares "Guilty! Guilty as charged!" Flames begin to engulf the projected. It's a striking lead-in for the play's format: a memoir narrated by Harry Reems.
Casting Reems as the narrator makes this mostly his story, and eases the shifts from between audience addressing narrative to action flashbacks. Since Reems was very much part of the overall zeitgeist of the Vietnam-Watergate era 1970s as well as the Deep Throat saga and its legal consequences, you can see why he was something of a logical comic-tragic hero. As characterized here, the actor whose career was going nowhere took readily to the porno trade since it gave him two things he'd been missing out on: money and lots of sex. Of course, what he didn't count on was finding himself caught up in a lengthy nightmarish legal battle stemming from the machinations by some of the government and legal community's super conservatives.
While Reems wasn't the only one charged by Mississippi prosecutor Larry Parrish (Frank Blocker) with conspiring to transport obscene materials across state lines, he was the only person who actually worked in the film who had to stand trial in a court with a carefully selected judge and jury (as the judge at the trial puts it "No, siree. Don’t want none of them warped minds sittin’ in the jury box. No heathen libertines in mah court"). Lucky for Harry that an up and coming First Amendment specialist, Alan Dershowitz (John Charles-Kelly in an intriguing bit of double casting), came to the rescue, but not before the stress of this lengthy ordeal launched Reems on an alcoholic downward spiral
Damiano's script, though covering most of the before, during and after Deep Throat facts, is more focused on telling an entertaining story than presenting a documentary that leaves no base uncovered. He and director Jerry Douglas have asseembled a group of actors most notable for their versatility, since most play multiple roles. Malcolm Madera is quite engaging as the hapless Reems and Lori Gardner embodies the pretty but not too bright Bronx girl (her real name was Linda Susan Boreman) who allowed herself to become the puppet on the string held with a stranglehold by her abusive husband and manager (Chuck Traymore bringing plenty of chilling creepiness to this character). Honors for taking on and shining in the largest number of characters go to Rita Rehn. If this were a musical, the big show stopper would belong to Frank Blocker's Prosecutor Larry Parrish with his amusing courtroom monologue, a blow-by-blow synopsis (if you read a double entendre into this, so be it) of the doctor-patient scene in Deep Throat.
The mix of cheap thrills and serious subtext is well supported by the work of the designers. And while the playwright has taken liberties with the facts, so did Linda Lovelace in the several memoirs she wrote in her post Deep Throat days and before her death at age 53 in 2002. Harry Reems. whose reputation as a porn star cost him his one chance to play in a big "regular" movie (Grease) is still alive. Attorney Alan Dershowitz became more and more famous, and Charles Keating, the righteous defender of public morality during the Nixon years, like so many extreme moralists, went on to make his own headlines for his part role in the savings and loan scandal of the late 1980s. You can find lots more details about all these people since there's tons of stuff about them on line. If you subscribe to Netflix, the more authentic Inside Deep Throat is available for instant watching.
I might be more inclined to buy into all the examples of free expressions credited to Deep Throat at the end of The Deep Throat Scandals, if the script didn't completely ignore how it also paved the way for a humugous porn entertainment market, especially once videos and the internet entered the picture and made everyone with a camera filmmaker. Not exactly a case of influencing higher artistic standards of either porno or other films. Still, no matter how you feel about nudity and sex beyond the missionary position as depicted on stage or screen, pornography whether too raunchy or not raunchy enough is far less likely to endanger what Bill and Melinda Gates call your " right to a healthy and productive life" than the manipulative, wrong-headed righteousness of many of our self-serving elected leaders and their minions.
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The Deep Throat Sex Scandal By David Bertolino Directed by Jerry Douglas Cast: Lori Gardner(Linda Lovelace), Malcolm Madera (Harry Reems); also Graham Stuart Allen (Tim/D.A//FBI Man#1/Karamer), Frank Blocker (Flasher/Larry Parrish/Make-up Man), Stephen Hope (Keating/Vito/Judge/ Camera Man), John-Charles Kelly (Gerard Damiano/ Alan Dershowitz), Rita Rehn (Shana Babcock/Mona/Woman in Audience/Cashier/Memphis Reporter), and Zach Wegner (Chuck Traynor/Cop #1/FBI #2/Tony Bill). Scenic design by Josh Iacovelli Lighting design by Graham Kindred Costume design by Jeffrey Wallach Projections: A2K Productions Stage Manager: Ernie Fimbres 45 Bleecker Street Theatre (just east of Lafayette Street) 212/239-6200 www.deepthroattheplay.com From 9/17/10; opening 10/10/10; closing 12/19/10. Tuesday though Friday evenings at 8pm, Saturday at 7:30pm & 11pm and Sundays at 4pm and 7:30pm. Tickets: $25 - $79.50. Running Time: 2 hours, includes one intermission Reviewed by Elyse Sommer at October 9th press performance |
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